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College Football Line Swings – Who did Linemakers Favor or Fade?

When the Golden Nugget released the 2014 College Football Games of the Year, I shared with you team by team summaries analyzing the lines. However, far more interesting than just what the current lines are, is the comparison of what they were the last time games were played.

As such, I went back as far as 2008 to find prior meetings with common opponents. However, the vast majority of games lined by the Golden Nugget were rematches from 2013 meetings. As such, we have very recent, relevant numbers to compare.

The key to such an analysis is adjusting for home field, because in most instances, teams hosting an opponent in 2014 were on the road vs that team in 2013. So the proper adjustments were made to bring both meetings (current and prior) to neutral locations to compare lines accurately.

The findings are displayed in two tables below. The first table (Line Swing Summary) shows the average line swing for all teams whose games were lined. At the top of the list is the runner up to the National Title, the Auburn Tigers. Their 9 releases this year feature average swings in their favor of almost 12 ppg as compared to their last meeting, a truly remarkable amount. Linemakers gave them a ton of respect due to their high profile and every increasing public sentiment continued to grow throughout the 2013 season. Other teams like USC and UCLA also received substantial swings in their favor as well.

On the other end of the spectrum is Baylor and Texas A&M. Baylor was significantly impacted. In their prior meetings in 2013, Baylor was an average favorite of 17 ppg vs teams such as Texas, WVA, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Kansas State. However, in 2014 vs those same opponents, they are favored by just 4.9 ppg on average. Adjusting for road v home to the lines, we find that Baylor was faded by 11.3 ppg by the linemakers. Texas A&M is naturally due to the disappearance of Johnny Manziel, but they were faded by 8.4 ppg.

Below the summary table is the detail table. Here, you can find (organized by team) every lined game as part of the 2014 Golden Nugget Games of the Year, and you can see how it compares to the prior meeting. The column on the far right is the line swing, where you can easily see which team was favored more in 2014 as compared to the prior meeting, and by how many points. If the line is blank, it indicates the prior meeting occurred prior to the 2008 season.

Interestingly, the linemakers favored Oklahoma by almost 8 ppg more in 2014 than vs the same opponents in 2013. However, sharp bettors were not buying it, and they actually bet AGAINST the Sooners in 6 games (and never once moving any of their games toward the Sooners), and dropped the Golden Nugget’s line by an average of 1.25 ppg. This was fascinating to see – linemakers taking a stronger position on a team, only to have sharp bettors hammer them for it. It will be very interesting to see how well Oklahoma does vs the spread in 2014.

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About Warren Sharp

Warren Sharp of SharpFootballAnalysis.com is an industry pioneer at the forefront of incorporating advanced analytics and metrics into football analysis. A licensed Professional Engineer by trade, Warren applies the same critical thought process and problem solving techniques into his passion, football. After spending years constructing, testing and perfecting computer models written to understand the critical elements to win NFL football games, Warren’s quantitative analytics are used in private consulting work, and elements of which are publicly shared on SharpFootballAnalysis.com. To contact Warren, please email [email protected] or send a direct message on Twitter to @SharpFootball.

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